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Peterson v. State12/4/2001
FORSBERG, Judge
This appeal is from a summary judgment in favor of respondent-employer State of Minnesota on appellant Bonnie A. Peterson's claims for failure to reasonably accommodate her disability and for reprisal under the Minnesota Human Rights Act. We affirm.
FACTS
Respondent Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) hired Peterson as a workers' compensation judge in 1987 and assigned her to the Minneapolis office to serve as a hearing judge. Effective August 2, 2000, OAH transferred Peterson to the St. Paul office to work as a settlement judge.
While employed by OAH, Peterson made 14 claims for work-related injuries under the Workers' Compensation Act (WCA). Several of those injuries occurred when she traveled to remote locations to conduct hearings. Peterson also suffers from a non-work-related disability in her right hand. As a result of her injuries, Peterson's work assignments have been subject to medical restrictions, including restrictions on driving time and on the use of her hand for specific tasks, including typing.
On June 30, 2000, Peterson was assigned to conduct two discontinuance cases under Minn. Stat. § 176.239 as a replacement judge. Peterson left the office that day without conducting the hearings. A factual dispute exists as to whether Peterson left because she was ill or because she did not know how to handle a discontinuance case. Respondent Kenneth Nickolai, the chief administrative judge for OAH, suspended Peterson without pay for three days for leaving without conducting the hearings. Peterson grieved the suspension, and Nickolai reduced it to a written reprimand. In her grievance of the suspension, Peterson stated that she believed a March 2000 trip to Worthington exceeded her medical restrictions and that since the trip, she had suffered from nausea and increased pain.
Effective August 2, 2000, Nickolai assigned Peterson to work as a settlement judge in the St. Paul office. Although the responsibilities of hearing judges differ from those of settlement judges, both positions are in the same classification and pay range. Peterson presented evidence that computer use by hearing judges ranges from five minutes to one hour per day, while computer use by settlement judges averages two hours per day.
Peterson's supervisor, respondent Janice Culnane, stated in an affidavit that in response to Peterson's complaint that computer use exceeded her one-hour-per-day medical restriction, OAH made accommodations, including eliminating all motion work because it requires a high volume of computer work; converting electronic format files to paper and assigning Peterson to work on older files still in paper format; providing Peterson with a Qualified Rehabilitation Consultant (QRC) of her choice; and providing her with the desk/work-station unit that she requested. OAH also provided Peterson with computer adaptations, including different mouse varieties, an alternate keyboard, mouse wrist support, and keyboard wrist support.
OAH denied Peterson's request to be assigned back to Minneapolis to work as a hearing judge. Nickolai stated in his affidavit that out-state travel is an essential part of the work of a hearing judge. Culnane explained:
Minn. Stat. § 176.306 requires the Chief Administrative Law Judge to schedule "worker's compensation hearings on as regular a schedule as may be practicable in no fewer than six widely separated locations throughout the state, including at least four locations outside of the seven county metropolitan area and Duluth, for the purpose of providing a convenient forum for parties to a compensation hearing." All compensation judges in the hea
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